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Green Lantern | 2011 | PG-13 | - 4.7.4
Based on the popular DC Comic series: a test pilot (Ryan Reynolds) is granted mysterious powers from a green ring given to him by a dying alien with otherworldly powers. He must now protect the universe along with an intergalactic squadron of aliens tasked to use willpower to overcome evil. Also with Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Tim Robbins, Temuera Morrison, Taika Waititi and Angela Bassett. Directed by Martin Campbell. [1:45]
SEX/NUDITY 4 - A man's bare chest and side are visible when he floats in mid-air wearing only a pair of brief-style underwear. A man's bare chest and a portion of his bare back are seen when he lies in bed, and then when he washes his face. Throughout the movie a man is seen wearing a very tight-fitting figure-revealing costume. A man is seen taking off his shirt; he is wearing a tank top. We very briefly see a female alien wearing a form-fitting costume. A woman wears a cleavage exposing dress. A woman wearing an off-the-shoulder dress (her bare shoulders are visible) is complimented by a man. We see the bare chest and side of a male alien that appears slightly humanoid.
► A man jokes to a woman, "Let's take these pants off" (we see no nudity). A man and a woman have a conversation with heavy innuendo, implying that they had previously had sex; the woman then implies that the man frequently has sex with multiple women. A woman makes a suggestive remark about a man disappointing women everywhere and the man rebukes her. A woman jokes that she would recognize a man because she had seen him naked previously. An older man teases his adult son by saying, "Did you get her name" after remarking that the man looks like he was awake all night. A man jokes with a boy that there are no dancing girls at the boy's birthday party.
► A man rests his head on the bare shoulder of a woman lying in a bed; he then leaps out of the bed (he is seen wearing brief-style underwear and we see his bare chest and back as he runs around pulling on his clothing).
► A man and a woman kiss passionately. A woman hugs a man and he smells her hair as his hands rest on her back. A man and a woman hug. A man and a woman seem to be about to kiss when the woman pulls away. A man and a woman dance closely together and their faces are very close.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A man throws a mutated man, his head massively swollen, through the air: the mutated man slams into a table, the two men rush each other, the mutated man uses a mental force to "hit" the other man with broken glass and the other man uses a green energy to melt the glass and spray molten liquid on the mutated man, who screams in pain; we then see both men lying on the ground, obviously injured, and the mutated man has small cuts and ulcers on his face.
► A black cloud monster shoves an alien as a face appears in the cloud monster and breathes a yellow energy onto the alien, slamming him to the ground; the alien escapes and we see a large, deep cut on his chest -- we later see the alien with small cuts on his face, a large hole in his chest and purple blood on his wounds. After a battle with a large black cloud monster, we see a man with small cuts on his face and two small cuts on his shoulder.
► A man uses an unseen mental force to lift another man into the air and force him onto a gurney, strapped at the feet and wrists; the man sends the gurney flying through the air and into a small room, he turns two large flame throwers on the room and we see the man on the gurney scream as flames billow.
► A man experiences the following flashback: A boy watches as his father takes off in a jet, the jet catches fire and crashes into an air traffic control tower, the man opens the cockpit of the jet, unharmed, the boy runs toward the jet, and it explodes in a massive fireball, presumably killing the man as the boy watches. A massive explosion knocks an alien backwards and we see him thrown through the air and hitting a floating wall.
► Three men approach a man in a parking lot, two of the men hold the man's arms back as the third man punches him in the stomach and knees him in the head, and one of the other men beats the man mercilessly (we see his eye appear puffy and bruised); he is thrown to the ground as the men insult him, and the beaten man summons an unseen force to throw one man through a brick wall, one into the windshield and hood of a car and the other to crash to the ground.
► A massive black cloud monster looms over a city, and we see people scatter and run as it wraps its cloud-like tentacles around buildings and cars and lifts people up; we see shadowy yellow skeletons appear to be sucked from people on the ground as a man uses various green weapons to fight the cloud monster and scare it away from a woman cornered on the street.
► A massive black cloud monster uses an unseen force to pull yellow shadowy skeletons from multiple aliens; the shadows pour from the aliens' mouths and eyes and into the "mouth" of the monster and the bodies of the aliens appear desiccated and collapse.
► A man uses an unseen force to create a series of green weapons that fire energy at a massive black cloud monster and pull it into outer space with a missile that the man follows through the mouth and body of the black cloud monster; the black cloud monster and the man hover close to the sun, the man summons a giant green fist and punches the black cloud monster into the sun, where is explodes into flames (the man narrowly escapes being sucked into the vortex created by the explosion of the cloud monster hitting the sun).
► A black cloud monster lifts a severely disfigured man into the air, the monster's head appears and sucks a shadowy yellow skeleton from the man's massively swollen eyes and mouth; the man's desiccated body drops to the ground, and he appears dead and mummified as another man and a woman watch.
► An alien uses an unseen force to lift three other aliens into the air where we see a burst of yellow light come from his eyes and mouth and pull what looks like shadowy yellow skeletons from the other aliens; the aliens collapse to the ground and appear dead.
► A man with a mutated and extremely swollen head uses an unseen mental force to throw a woman through the air and slam her head into a window (we see the window shatter but no blood is visible); two soldiers that come to her aid are lifted into the air by the man's mental powers and slammed into one another as four other men using tasers approach the man; the man uses mental force to freeze the taser electrodes mid-air and turn them back on the men, who then fall to the ground, shaking.
► Aliens approach a large black cloud monster hovering above a planet and using an unseen green force they send a wave of energy toward the monster that roars and we see the "face" of the black cloud monster.
► A woman is about to drop from the outside of a second story window where her face appears to be smashed against the glass when a man using mental powers sends her crashing toward the ground; another man conjures a wave of green energy to break the woman's fall and she appears unharmed as she is slowly lowered to the ground.
► A man with a mutated and extremely swollen head uses a mental power to force a doctor holding a syringe to hit himself in the head with the syringe with such force that he is thrown to the ground.
► A man uses mental powers to force a beer tap to fly through the air and break the blade of a helicopter, the helicopter, with two men inside, loses control and crashes through a large screen television (it's very close to a crowd of men and women that dive for safety, including one woman that is almost struck when the helicopter knocks a sign off a building) and another man uses a force that takes the helicopter to safety and no one is harmed.
► A man with a mutated and extremely swollen head uses a mental force to cause a woman to float in mid-air with a syringe floating next to her neck and threatens that he will inject her with the syringe, which will turn her into a mutant. A man with a severely swollen head blasts a fireball through a series of computers, and he tries to send a blast of green energy toward another man that deflects it and sends it back toward him, knocking him backwards and into a wall.
► An alien and a man engage in a fight with swords: the swords morph into various weapons including a Gatling gun, a chainsaw and three short swords that surround the man's face as the alien continually knocks the man to the ground.
► A man rests his hand on a woman's arm and experiences a flash of memories from her, including a gun being fired toward a man and a woman and the image of a woman standing in front of grave, implying that the woman had witnessed the man and the woman being murdered.
► Three aliens walk away from crashed space ships, and the ground beneath the aliens collapses and they fall into an underground cave; they then stand upright and are unharmed.
► During a training session, we see three aliens attacking a man, including the following action: an alien punches the man and throws him through a fake brick wall, a man struggles to create a metal plate from a green force as an alien throws two large rocks (also made from the green force), and an alien uses discs to cut through the pillars of a stand holding rocks that threaten to crush the man.
► A man and a woman drive jets through the air while chasing two robot jets: the man drives his jet extremely high, causing the two robot jets and his jet to stall, and the man's jet free-falls toward the ground and he parachutes out, unharmed -- we see the jet hit the ground and blow up in a massive explosion.
► A man drives a car using no hands, he speeds erratically down a street and slams on his brakes to avoid rear-ending another car; the driver swerves into another lane and almost hits a pickup truck head-on, but swerves back and is unharmed. Two men drive in a jeep, the driver swerves erratically and we see the car fly into the air as they ramp over a bridge (both the driver and the passenger are unharmed).
► A man investigates a large, deep wound on the chest of an alien: we see him digging his hand into the wound and sticky purple liquid, implied to be blood-like, is seen on his hands; the man winces when he appears to be zapped by a yellow light that hits his finger from within the wound. A man discovers an alien inside a spaceship, the alien struggles to breathe, and we see small cuts on his face and a large deep wound on his chest; the man reaches to help the alien and remarks that he has gotten the alien's purple blood on his hand (we see shiny purple liquid on the man's hands).
► A man screams and holds his head in his hands, he stumbles to the ground and shrieks in pain as we see his head gradually growing and becoming misshapen; the man then angrily shoves a television to the ground with a crash. A man screams as we see what looks like electrical currents going through his body (he is later seen unharmed). A man uses a large syringe to draw blood from his own arm; we see the syringe entering his arm and later see the man putting a drop of blood onto a microscope slide.
► A man grabs another man's face, three security guards surround him and inject him in the neck with an unknown substance, the man goes limp and we see him strapped to a gurney with constraints on his wrists and ankles. A man uses a mental power to break free from constraints on his ankles and wrists. A man dramatically slaps himself in the face with both hands. A man shoves angrily the hand of his father off his shoulder.
► A man steps into a green circular shadow that jerks him into the air, and we see him struggling, attempting to push his way out of the circle as it flies through the air. A man is lifted by a green circular shadow that zooms through the air and drops him into a puddle (the man is unharmed). A man screams as he jumps off a ledge and begins to fall; moments later he flies through the air, unharmed.
► A woman shouts at a man. A man shouts at a woman. A man shouts at his father. A man shouts at another man, accusing him of trying to emulate their father's death in an airline crash. A man screams in a panic as he sleeps restlessly.
► An alien tells another alien that an unknown force had destroyed an entire planet. An alien tells a group of elderly aliens that many lives are at risk due to an unknown monster that had already killed four aliens. An alien tells several aliens and a human that another alien was responsible for the death of four aliens as well as an entire society of aliens. An alien tells a man that performing a task could kill him and the man says he is going to "die trying." We hear a television reporter announce that a man had been in a serious accident when he had to eject from a jet that caught on fire. A reporter describes how a man's father had died in a flying accident. A television reporter announces that a crowd of men and women had to run for their lives when a helicopter malfunctioned at a party and almost ran into the crowd. We hear a narrator explain that an alien had captured another alien and trapped him on a foreign planet after he had killed other aliens. An alien jokes that a human male smells bad and the man replies with a similar statement.
► A man shows another man a pile of rocks that are presumably covering the deceased body of an alien and we later see the body.
► An alien playfully hits a man on the back and the man winces in pain.
LANGUAGE 4 - 1 obscene hand gesture, 5 sexual references, 2 scatological terms, 2 anatomical terms, 8 mild obscenities, name-calling (buggers, freak, irresponsible, weakling, worthless, loser, naïve, embarrassment, evil, worst pilot I've ever seen, green space cop, failure, irrational, opinionated), 2 religious profanities, 7 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - Men and women are seen drinking at a party, a man rapidly drinks an alcoholic drink at a party, a man and a woman are seen at a bar and the woman drinks a beer, and a man asks a woman if she would like a drink and the woman accepts the offer.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Rules of engagement, "dog fights" as military/flying terminology, expectations, disappointment, fear, humanity, humility, friendship, betrayal, end of the world, being an outsider, insecurities, fear, willpower, aliens, justice.
MESSAGE - You must conquer fear and doubt in order to succeed in any mission.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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